"Their worth is best tied up in their performance so that is always a dangerous slippery slope."
The common denominator, Minjares says, is for society to recognise them as people.
"Things like this happen. You get into trouble. You screw up late one night and you show up late one day.
"These are people. Kids are people. Athletes are people but when we prop them up too much and they are not allowed to be people anymore is when things go wrong," says Minjares, a former NCAA Div III basketball player at Claremont McKenna College, who coaches the New Zealand U17 boys' basketball squad.
"They can't mess up. They aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore."
His passion is using sport to help youngsters develop the personal approach to dealing with solving problems.
"I'm someone who grew up learning a lot through sport. A lot of people believe in the power of sport."
Minjares makes children the fulcrum of his research on how coaches, and those in the matrix, can organise structures to hone their skills.
The University of California Berkeley graduate is working with the NCAA basketball team.
He was involved with its basketball academy for almost four years before channelling his energy into gaining his Masters in coaching and pedagogy.
Minjares reflects on his own formative years where he grappled with his share of academic demons.
"We shouldn't be putting people on the field if, academically, especially at high school level, they aren't honouring their commitments."
In the States, he says that's an issue that is a regular subject for brainstorming.
"You have emotions, you're dealing with things and the second you start putting Johnny the athlete above Johnny the person is when you start getting into trouble."
Minjares says that is when people start making concessions for athletes to find clauses for them to circumvent the mores of society - "as long as they are performing".
The talented ones come to the crossroads of their lives when they realise the system is not propping them up anymore as athletes and they are left to their own devices.
An after-sport vision, well before a sportsperson's shelf life expires, is crucial.
"You don't want to wait until you're done with your sport to know what your options are. You want to be building on the side things as you go along so that balances you out."
It pleases Minjares to learn of athletes who are engaging in off-season activities that are totally unrelated to their codes.
"Your $800 is going into doing apprenticeships in finance in Silicon Valley in getting your degrees and working on side projects in building skills, media skills and entrepreneurship."
He is loath to point a finger at coaches who can have immense influence on youngsters to the extent that it can eclipse parental control.
"A lot of these things we are talking about in prioritising performance are inherited from the way they [mentors] were coached."
The problems stem from sticking to a well-trodden path where a set of values is reinforced because it had worked.
Minjares argues there's a dire need to adapt to the requirements of young people because one template doesn't suit all.
"I know that there is some concern among coaches, depending on the level, that we're getting too soft on kids - like you can't get too tough on kids anymore because now they don't respond to that too well."
For Minjares, it's a case of what is the appropriate challenge for where they are at. It's not whether a mentor can challenge or support them or not.
"It should be where are they in their current space and how can I support them to help them grow."
Consequently he feels it requires a coach to "look inward" to cultivate evaluation schemes as coach appraisal kitsets.
"If I only view you as a successful coach only if your team win then it's going to affect you as a coach and how you perform your practice."
It's not lost on Minjares that his subject matter will require a universal shift in thinking in a world so caught up in professional sport.
However, he also realises it's not just a sport issue but a matter that even the education system is coming to terms with as teachers try to develop an appraisal system to gauge their own worth.
Ditto the business sector and employees who are in the throes of defining job satisfaction.
"You know, those other less objectively quantifiable forms are always receding into the background in a traditional paradigm of thinking but everyone is dealing with it in their own way."
Sport, Minjares reckons, is taking a step back in some ways to find momentum reflected in contemporary literature highlighting the shift in coach-centred mentoring to athlete-focused coaching.
"It's tough but we're not the only ones so it should give us some confidence that it's necessary and that it needs to happen."
While change feels big, it really starts the ball rolling verbally, he says of his Auckland-based Good Sports programme.
"How often do we talk about this and how often do we engage in issues of where our kids are at?"
Minjares believes more is achieved with open, honest dialogue rather than debating.
"There's no doubt when our kids show talent and ability it begins well intentioned but there's always that risk of getting too consumed and having it overtake not just the kid but me as an adult."
He says there's also the fear parents and children harbour letting well-intentioned people down when they want to say no to involvement.
"You have to stop and ask yourself at a certain stage, 'Do we need to do everything? Do I have to put my kid in every team? What's best for the kid?'," Minjares says.
